Everybody is doing well (by picking against the 49ers and with the Raiders, mostly, but this week the Raiders are on a bye).

Quickly to the picks…

1. BACH (last week 1-2, overall 16-11)/

* 49ERS +13.5 over Cardinals – I am not comfortable with the spread. That and Carson Palmer can be turnover prone as well.

* HOUSTON -2.5 over Jags

* GREEN BAY -2.5, over Titans

-Picks TBA.

T2. KAWAKAMI (last week 2-0-1, overall 15-11-1)/

* ARIZONA -13.5, over 49ers. My comment: How high would this spread have to get to pull me to the 49ers’ side? A lot higher than this. Maybe up to 16 or 17, I’m thinking, and even then I would hesitate before putting a check the Red/Gold team.

I remember the days and weeks after the Giants lost Game 7 of the 2002 World Series to the Angels: Utter desolation and wondering if they’d ever get that close again.

So I was curious about the mood of the Giants front office now, in early November, a few weeks after the Giants lost to the Cubs in a disastrous Game 4 of the NLDS… and just a few days after the Cubs won their first title in 108 years.

Nobody better to check with than Giants CEO Larry Baer, who reflected the changed mood of this franchise after winning the 2010, 2012 and 2014 championships.

The Giants are upset about losing–and ending their run of even-year titles–but they also know that they’re probably not far from getting back, because they know exactly what it took to do it, on three separation occasions, with many of the same players who remain centerpieces of this team heading into 2017.

It’s edginess far more than despair, is what I would say.

Larry and I talked about the Giants’ obvious need for a closer, the potential payroll parameters for the upcoming Hot Stove League negotiations, their inclination to give their younger outfielders shots for the vacant left-field job, and why he was proud that the team kept fighting through so much struggle in the second half of this season.

Marcus Thompson II, calling in for this episode from LA, summed it up nicely: The support Kevin Durant got from his new Warriors teammates as he faced his old teammates last night was exactly why he wanted to be on the Warriors in the first place.

Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and everybody else went out of their way to make sure Durant had a great game against Oklahoma City, and he had the talent to pull it off.

That’s pretty simple, that’s the way it worked out, and that’s why the Warriors are such a fascinating and powerful squad.

I also thought this empathy might’ve partly weighed the Warriors down for the first few games of the season as they stressed to make things as smooth as possible for Durant, but they seemed to move past that last night.

Yeah, I knew this conversation would be wide-ranging and hit a lot of high notes.

You talk to Marc Spears, of ESPN’s The Undefeated, and you never know where things might lead, but you always know that it’ll be interesting and it will involve great sights, sounds, and food.

And that’s just over dinner at the Warriors media room–as I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, I actually just stopped talking to Marc last night because everything he said was so interesting and I wanted to save it for today’s recorded conversation.

Which is what we got, on topics ranging from Russell Westbrook’s wardrobe mockery of Kevin Durant to Durant’s in-game fireworks to Spears’ view of Durant’s time in the Kanye West mosh pit to his recent trip to China to do a story on Stephon Marbury’s grand exploits.

Also, Marc talked about getting a surprise call from somebody close to Colin Kaepernick, and then getting on the phone with Kaepernick, to set up Spears’ great one-on-one interview with Kaepernick last weekend.

* NEW ORLEANS -3.5, over 49ers – Add the injuries to Aaron Lynch and Rashard Robinson to the league’s worst defense and there is no way this team can keep pace with the Saints ability to put points in he board.